Animal consciousness versus human consciousness by J. Holme.

As far as we can tell the main difference between humans and other animals is not biological but technological. We share 95% plus of our DNA with our nearest primate cousins and yet they share virtually none of our technology. What is it that makes this enormous difference? Many think it is our self-awareness. However could it just be a more fundamental technology, language, and not due to any ‘magical’ property like a special kind of consciousness.

Language is composed of words and words are labels for thoughts. They are all names in this sense and their only reference is thoughts. Thoughts are really, as far as science can tell us, groups of neurons causing each other to fire in particular patterns. Within these patterns are encoded memories, images and concepts and these are also related to a particular name or word. So for instance I say ‘cow’ meaning my concept of a cow as encoded. Hopefully the other person hearing my label has a similar pattern related to their word ‘cow’. Obviously it will never be the same pattern. The brain is the most complicated structure known to science and has more possible states than there are electrons in the universe.

Each person’s brain is also unique, and like fingerprints the contours of the cortex are also. The structure is physically unique and the developmental programming is also. Your life experiences are different than mine in most respects and in all respects as regards your viewpoint. Your concept of ‘cow’ may be associated with distaste for beef and mine may be the opposite. However for most practical purposes if I point at a bull and say ‘cow’ we will both know what we are talking about and you may be able to correct me. Now my concept, after some repetition of this lesson perhaps, will be changed to include bulls and various ideas about them. In this way, to some extent, I have downloaded part of your concept of ‘cow’. Now our concepts are even more similar and when we use the word it will be closer in meaning than before for both of us.

Does language then actually create the pattern of the brain, and more interestingly does it actually create the conscious mind? After all most of the brain works at such enormous speeds we could never be conscious of it, it would just be too confusing. The consciousness can only hold one thought at a time, and perhaps an emotion, or colouring of that thought. Emotions may be the only way that a vast amount of processing, often of a highly complex but perhaps simplistic and mechanical nature, can be understood by the conscious mind.

So words are representations of highly complex concepts that can be used by the conscious mind to process data. If we had to think everything through step-by-step it would take us 30,000 times longer than it does the unconscious mind, according to some experimental results. Without higher level symbolism in the mind we would not be conscious of our thoughts at all. Consciousness would be wiped out by the data flow. Only by ignoring this giant calculating machine in out heads can we have any time or attention left for anything. Instead we manipulate high-level labels for much more complex networked concepts. Stripping off everything that is not directly relevant to the thought process that is taking place.

Consciousness then could be the default state of a mind. It is necessarily aware of what is going on in itself. But as processing becomes more and more complex, during development perhaps even prenatally, this processing must by necessity be ignored. Then we become fully unconscious of our thoughts and perhaps just emotions, images and needs are the only things that get through. Later as we learn to use language we find we are more and more able to process using these high-level labels. These can be generally controlled and manipulated consciously and rarely become overwhelming. Also these tools are of enormous value to our processing from the earliest days. Just a couple of words understood from a parent or teacher can have the value of years of processing time just within the brain. They can make connections between two concepts which we may not have realised had this connection, like ‘cows’ and ‘danger of death’.

Cows are placid and friendly creatures but bulls on the other hand, though they appear superficially very similar, are not placid and can actually be a threat to our very survival. This one bit of knowledge could quite literally be worth a lifetime of unconscious processing when deciding whether to cross a field with cow-like animals in.

During the evolution of the human species maybe a similar process was gone through, as there often seem to be similarities between individual development and species development. Perhaps humans were as higher apes and other animals appear today to us to be. Very limited in their use of language, or high-level symbols. Perhaps humans started to use crude symbols both between each other and internally. It is inevitable, whether labelling starts externally or internally, it must almost immediately become both.

By way of example perhaps ‘ufa’ with a particular gesture is the symbol for deer, combined with pointing in their general direction. ‘Ufa’ is not a difficult sound to make and pointing is a thing many animals are capable of. Gradually the hand gesture is no longer required and ‘ufa’ is linked to the images and concept of deer in the brains of the people of the tribe.

It can be seen how in this way many more labels for concepts may be built up. Maybe soon there could be a concept for ‘near’ and perhaps for ‘not’. So a conversation could look like this; ‘Ufa! Ufa!’ cries one early human as she runs into camp pointing behind her. ‘Nogga?’ meaning ‘near’ reply’s another. ‘Nitnogga’ replies the first to indicate it is going to be a bit of a trek to get to them, or that they have time to prepare a trap.

With the development of these labels for concepts that are so useful, satisfying and socially required perhaps the conscious mind itself is built. Consciousness of the overall state of the brain and body is just inevitable. We can see it in children and animals all the time. They react to stimuli, they are conscious of stimuli. They may not have developed a conscious mind but that is not to say they are unaware of their experiences, needs and emotions. The conscious mind as we know it is reliant on the controlled manipulation of high-level concepts and these are called words, language. This makes our thoughts able to enter our consciousness in a way that doesn’t swamp us. We can use these labels to make high-level decisions and communicate valuable information with others. They are also our way of communicating with our own highly-complex central computers which would otherwise only have emotions, images and needs as a way of expression.

If this is accepted then what does it mean for the way we treat animals. The only difference between us and them is language. As far as we can tell no other animals use high-level symbolism to anything like the extent we do. Dolphins certainly do a lot, chimps and other primates have remarkable abilities (many of which are not as publicised as one might expect). However there is probably no mysterious thing we have called ‘consciousness’. By necessity a complicated creature is aware of what is happening to it. We can see that they react to stimuli and it is hard to see how they could ever survive or evolve if they did not. Their consciousness may be overwhelmed by the power of their processing and they may have few, if any, high-level labels to aid in conscious processing, but they are as conscious as us. They are aware of the their feelings and needs, their pain and fear.

Could it be the case that at the end of the day the only real difference between human and animal consciousness is that we can give our informed consent. Only we can understand the high-level concepts involved in medical experimentation. Only we can say ‘yes’ I am willing to undergo the risks and pain involved and only we can demand compensation should things go wrong.